mand is actually possible. Granted, three millennia after the
end of the Bronze Age, we still use large amounts of copper
(not so much for weapons anymore), but coal is rarely used to
heat homes in developed nations despite its abundance.

On the other hand, there is no doubt but that many of thosetouting peak oil demand do so because it suits their particularideology. It is amusing to see Thinkprogress.org’s Joseph Rommconfidently argue for an early peak for oil demand, since a fewshort years ago he was similarly secure in the belief that peakoil supply was imminent, as witness his 2009 comments “…Ihave blogged endlessly on the painfully obvious reality that weare at or near the peak oil supply.” Now, he admits, “The ideaof peak oil supply…is dead.”This demonstrates once again how many pundits adopt astance and cherry pick some data or citations to support theirviews without actually knowing much about the situation.Consumer (of punditry) beware.

The primary two arguments supporting the case of peak oil
demand are that climate change policies and the technological
revolution in transportation will act to suppress demand. There
is an obvious overlap between the two.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The Carbon Tracker Initiative has argued that, generally speaking, 80% of current fossil fuel reserves cannot be consumed
between now and 2050 if the world is to meet the 2 degrees
Celsius increase ceiling. Clearly, this is aspirational rather than
analytical. The Kyoto Accords were greeted with great fanfare,
yet only 50% of the targets have been met.

And the presumption restricting fossil fuel consumption
will be the only policy is obviously flawed. Although most forms
of carbon sequestration are currently uneconomic, in the future
it might prove as viable as, say, electric vehicles. Similarly,
geoengineering holds significant potential, with some approaches already appearing to be economically viable.

And the impact on oil demand appears to be exaggerated.
Studies of necessary GHG reductions such as the IEA’s see as
little as 18% coming from the transportation sector, with 53%
from power generation and buildings, where oil is not usually
a major component of demand. And finally, since electric vehicles are a particularly expensive way of reducing GHG emissions, a reduction in support for electric vehicles is quite likely,
rather as Spain, Germany, Japan and others have curtailed financial support for expensive renewable energy.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

Technology clearly appears to be advancing rapidly, particularly
in the fields of electronics, and many activists others are embracing it as the solution to climate change. The main impact
on oil demand would be from lithium-ion battery progress, but
ride-sharing and biofuels appeal to some as potential
game-changes that could affect oil demand.

For biofuels, it is simply enough to note that for 20 years,promises of imminent breakthroughs have not been fulfilled,and while some great advance could occur at any time, theodds suggest that there will be no major change in productioncosts in the next decade. Indeed, as a Newsweek article put it,“several major companies including Shell and ExxonMobil areseemingly abandoning their investments in this environmen-tally friendly fuel.” Jatropha, seen a decade ago as a source ofbiodiesel, has been largely abandoned and U.S. cellulosic ethanolproduction, hailed as a savior by Richard Lugar James Woolsleytwo decades ago, remains at roughly 1 tb/d or 0.1% of ethanolsupply.Autonomous vehicles could progress rapidly into the market,but are more likely to increase vehicle-miles-traveled ratherdecrease them. Ride-sharing has great appeal for technophiles,but the evidence that it will change vehicle ownership, let alonethe type of propulsion, is minimal. Groups like Re ThinkX, whoargue that private vehicle ownership will plummet in the nextdecade, sales falling to zero by 2024, appear to be wildly opti-mistic given that large cities like New York and Tokyo withexpensive parking and insurance and dense mass transit andtaxi systems still have high levels of car ownership, roughlyone per two households, demonstrating there is a significantconsumer demand for the convenience of car ownership.While ride-sharing of autonomous battery electric vehicleswill probably grow in major urban centers, the market pene-tration in the US as a whole seems unlikely to be significantfor at least a decade. Further, the more ready availability oftransport might mean an increase in miles traveled, ratherthan a decrease.Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) get the most attention as atechnology with the potential to suppress petroleum demand.Already, there are roughly two million BEVs in use and saleshave been growing exponentially. As Table 1 shows, a numberof groups have projected that BEVs will be competitive withconventional vehicles within the next decade, based on theirprojections of falling costs for lithium-ion batteries.

Of course, there have been many previous instances where
electric vehicles were touted as on the verge of acceptance